"The NBA's head-to-head skills don't work on the international stage. In a way, I would have liked the team to lose a game. ”
It was Popovich's speech after the U.S. team lost to Nigeria in its first warm-up game, and the team lost the game like Popovich, where he was thrown 20 three-pointers by Nigeria.
Probably losing a game was not enough to teach the United States a lesson, today they lost again to Australia, the game did not even play to the final moment, Australia with a 5-point advantage into the last two minutes, and finally won the United States by 8 points.
Losing to Australia is not a new thing for the United States, the 2019 World Cup warm-up match, the United States lost to Australia in the warm-up match. After that, he did not even reach the semi-finals, and finally ranked seventh.
The loss of dominance of the U.S. men's basketball team may no longer be just a question, at least now they have not yet brought the real dominance to the fans to see, these two games are played very ugly.
The Dream Team's signature tight defensive counterattack was gone, replaced by a three-point shot, trying to beat the opponent with a feel, turning the game into a three-point training session.
So in the first game, Durant shot 4 of 13 and Beale shot 1 of 7, and the team only shot 41.3% from the field. Even Nigeria began to press for American mistakes, and the scene was once very embarrassing.
Playing Australia today, the U.S. team attacked better, Lillard soared to 16 points in the first half, but was dumbfounded in the second half. Their defense is still rotten to the extreme, like a few stars casually coming to play wild balls.
When have you ever seen Mills single Durant so easily, and where is the others' defense? Mills played like Iverson today.
Looking at the U.S. team's rim performance today, how many times Australia has hit the basket is an easy layup to score, and even the Warriors dare not simply let Green go to the frame.
The current American team does not have a reliable organizational point (it seems that only the dream chasing has some organizational attributes); there is no good wing defender, the overall height is short, but it cannot play the Warriors' five small agility; and there is no reliable interior line frame point.
It is no problem to use the dream chaser as the inner line of the small lineup, but the problem is that the Warriors have been running out of tacit understanding for many years, and this American team has only played together for about ten days.
These stars are accustomed to the magic ball system, when they encounter the fiba rules of the field is very uncomfortable, once the feel is cold, it is easy to fall into an embarrassing scoring drought, these two games give people the feeling.
The era of relying solely on the personal talent and physical qualities of stars to crush everything has passed, and now the world's basketball standards are improving, and the gap between the United States and the United States is gradually narrowing.
The NBA's three consecutive years of MVPs being won by foreign players can already explain some problems, the United States team is still the strongest team on paper, but it is time to put away their ridiculous conceit. Patiently grinding into the lineup, correcting their defensive attitude, and polishing tactical details is the right way.
Today's game Chasing Dream Green scored 1 point, in the words of Fan Zhiyi, it is not easy to get 1 point in basketball.
Counting the last 3 games of the 2019 World Cup, the U.S. men's basketball team has lost 4 of its last 5 games. Another sentence of Fan Zhiyi is also used: the American team does not want to lose the face.